The Rainbow and the Rose (17 page)

I nodded. ‘I’ll get the machine pushed out while you’re changing, and fit a pair of headphones in the helmet for you.’

When she came across the tarmac to the machine in the weak, frosty sun she was dazzling in white, boyish with her short, curly hair. She put on her new white helmet and I adjusted the headphones for her; with the strap done up beneath her chin the white fabric framed her face giving her, queerly, the appearance of a nun. I stood back and looked at her, and then went round behind her and did up the strap of the boiler suit behind her back. ‘That’s better.’ And then I said casually, ‘You look like a million dollars.’

She laughed self-consciously. ‘It feels very businesslike.’

‘Well, let’s get to business. We’ll try a turn or two today.’

‘How do you do a turn?’

‘I’ll tell you when you’re in the air. Can you remember how to do your belt up?’

‘I think so.’

‘Well, get in and do your belt up while I get my coat, and then I’ll come and see if you’ve done it right.’

When we were in the air I told her about climbing and
gave her the machine to hold on a straight climb. When we got up to a thousand feet and she was flying straight and level I found that she was doing it quite well; over the gasworks and the railway station the air was a bit bumpy, but her corrections were quick and accurate. I turned the machine and set her to fly back through the bumpy bit for practice, and then I started in to show her Rate One turns. By the time that her half hour was up she was doing those quite nicely, and I was reflecting that I’d have a job to spin out her instruction for twelve hours, the time I always like to give a woman pupil as a minimum.

When we landed and got out of the machine I told her, ‘That was very good, Mrs Marshall. You were doing those turns quite nicely. You were slipping outwards just a bit on one or two of them. Holding off a little too much bank. Try and think of your behind when you’re in a turn. Get the feel of it so that you don’t feel you’re slipping either way upon the cushion.’

‘Isn’t that what the little bubble is supposed to tell you?’

‘Don’t think about the bubble. Think of your behind. I’ll tell you about the bubble later. The only instrument you want to use at present is the airspeed indicator.’

She nodded. ‘I do like flying in this boiler suit. It seems to make it so much easier.’

‘Does it?’

She nodded. ‘My skirt was always blowing up before.’

I wondered if a boiler suit would help Esmé Haughton, whose progress had been slow. ‘None of my other women pupils fly in boiler suits,’ I said. ‘I wish you’d show it to them.’

‘I never see them,’ she said. ‘Nobody’s ever here when I come.’

‘That’s because you’ve always been here on a weekday,’ I told her. ‘There’s a crowd here all the time on Saturday and Sunday – all three aircraft going hard. If you want a lesson
tomorrow or on Sunday I’d better put you down for a time now. We’re liable to get booked up.’

She hesitated. ‘Do none of the other women wear boiler suits like this?’

‘They don’t yet,’ I said. ‘When they’ve seen you, they’ll all be getting them.’

‘You don’t think it looks a bit conspicuous?’

‘It looks swell,’ I told her. ‘It
is
conspicuous, but it’s so very practical. I think you’ll set a fashion here when they see that.’

I was surprised when she came to the club next day to find how few members knew her. Leacaster is a fair-sized city and she lived in one of the biggest houses in the neighbourhood, but she came shyly, as a stranger. She came with Esmé Haughton and they both had a lesson, the doctor’s daughter wearing one of Mrs Marshall’s spare boiler suits. It didn’t make a lot of difference to her flying, but the owner of the suit was getting on quite well. I was too busy that afternoon to be able to give them much attention after their lessons, but I introduced my new member to young Peter Woodhouse, the honorary secretary. When darkness came and I landed for the last time that day with the last pupil, I went into the bar for a can of beer and found Peter there. He told me that they had both changed back into their ordinary clothes directly they had finished flying, and he had given them afternoon tea in the club room. Then they had watched the flying for a little and had gone away. Mrs Marshall had put her name down for a lesson next afternoon.

‘I thought she was rather nice,’ he said. ‘She thaws out after a bit. At first I thought that she was snooty, but I’m not sure that she isn’t just shy.’

I nodded. ‘She doesn’t know many of the members.’

‘I’d never met her before,’ he remarked. ‘I’ve seen the car, sometimes. It’s a wizard car. If I had that I wouldn’t wash it. I’d lick the dirt off it.’

‘She seems to live a very retired sort of a life,’ I told him. ‘Nobody knows much about her in the village. Her mother does most of the shopping. The vicar says she was a concert pianist before she married, and she plays beautifully.’

He took a drink of beer. ‘I suppose it’s natural,’ he said. ‘For any woman who’s a bit sensitive, after that hoo-ha with her husband.’

‘Hoo-ha?’

He nodded. ‘It must be three years ago now, but it caused quite a rumpus at the time, and made a lot of talk. They had him in court for it.’

‘What for?’

‘Little girls,’ he said. ‘After that they put him in the bughouse.’

I was grateful for the information, but I changed the subject and ordered him another can of beer. ‘She’s going to make a very good pilot if she goes on with it. I don’t know when I’ve had a woman that got hold of it so quickly.’

He grinned. ‘Looks all right, too.’

‘See if you can introduce her to a few people,’ I suggested. ‘When there’s an opportunity. I don’t like to see a couple of women coming here and knowing nobody, and having tea alone.’

He was a good secretary, Peter Woodhouse, and he took up my suggestion. He didn’t introduce her to the motor racing crowd, not just at first. I dashed into the clubhouse for a quick cup of tea next afternoon between lessons while the Moth was being refuelled, and I saw her having tea with Ronnie Clarke. Ronnie was mad on flying. He was only just seventeen and still at school, in the fifth form of St Peter’s College. He spent all his spare time out at the aerodrome watching the flying and going up as a passenger whenever he got the chance, but his father wouldn’t let him learn to fly till he was eighteen and had passed his matriculation. I thought then that Peter had made a good choice, because she
wouldn’t be shy with Ronnie and he was a pleasant sort of boy, and he was always there at the week-ends. Later, she could get to know the tougher guys.

We got a spell of bad weather after that, with westerly gales and rain, but she still made an appointment for a lesson each day, though frequently I had to ring up in the morning and cancel it. Once when I did that she said, ‘The clouds are quite high, aren’t they?’

‘They’re all right,’ I said, ‘but there’s a wind of about thirty miles an hour, and very gusty. You wouldn’t be able to learn anything on a day like this – it’s much too rough.’

‘Could you fly in this?’ she asked. ‘Safely, I mean?’

‘Oh yes,’ I replied. ‘Have to have someone on the wing tips, taxi-ing. It’s just that it’s too rough for instruction.’

‘If I came out, could you take me up?’ she asked. ‘Just so that I can feel what you do in rough weather, resting my hands and feet on the controls?’

‘We could do that, if you like,’ I said. So I took her up and flew her round a bit, battling with the Moth and using full aileron now and then. At the end of twenty minutes I asked her if she would like to try it straight and level by herself, and she did, and did it fairly well. After that she never let me cancel a lesson unless I could assure her that I wouldn’t fly myself. We flew in mist and rain, groping our way around the countryside at a few hundred feet. I was glad in a way because it gave me an excuse to prolong her instruction to my twelve hours minimum for women; otherwise she’d have been fit to go solo at seven or eight.

She went solo early in March. She had been ready for a week or two, but I kept her doing landings and little cross-country trips around Leacaster till we got the perfect day. Then one morning it was bright and sunny, cold with a northerly wind and a rising barometer. We did two landings together, and then I undid my belt and turned to look at her. ‘Like to try it alone?’

She nodded.

I got out on to the wing, and closed the door of the front cockpit, making sure my safety belt was secured across the seat. I got down on to the ground and stood beside her in the slipstream of the slowly running engine. ‘Take your time,’ I said. ‘Do a circuit or two at a thousand feet till you feel comfortable, and then bring her in to land. If your gliding turns don’t come out just the way you want them, put on engine and go round again. You’re flying very nicely this morning. If you feel quite comfortable after the first landing, do another one. If you’re not quite happy, bring her in and we’ll do a bit more together. Okay?’

She nodded, and smiled at me. ‘Don’t get heart failure …’

I grinned at her. ‘I shan’t do that.’ I turned and walked across the grass towards the hangar, not looking back because it fusses a pupil when he sees the instructor looking at him. It was not until I heard the engine open up that I turned to watch her rather wobbly take-off.

She climbed away straight from the aerodrome till she was at about seven hundred feet, then levelled off and did a wide turn to the left. She flew back over the aerodrome and did a couple of steeper turns, and by that time I knew that she was gaining confidence. Then she went over downwind and commenced the gliding turns that would bring her close up to the hedge. She came in rather high but carried on and touched down about the middle of the aerodrome, bounced two or three times, and came to rest. I saw her looking towards me as I stood upon the tarmac, and I signalled to her to go on and do another.

When she taxied the machine into the hangar she was flushed and excited. I walked up to the cockpit as she came to rest. ‘That was all right,’ I said. ‘Were you quite comfortable?’

She pulled her helmet off. ‘It was marvellous,’ she said. ‘The first one was a rotten landing, I’m afraid.’

‘It wasn’t too bad,’ I told her. ‘The second one was better. You came in a bit high on the first one. Did that upset you?’

‘Yes, it did,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t sure if I ought to put on engine and go round again, and I dithered a bit over that, and then I decided there was plenty of room. I think it put me off.’

‘That’ll all come right with a bit of practice,’ I said.

She nodded, and got out of the machine. And then she turned to me and said quite seriously, ‘I don’t know how to say what I’m feeling, Captain Pascoe. But I do want to thank you for all you’ve done in teaching me. I felt so
safe.
’

I laughed. ‘I’m glad of that, Mrs Marshall. It’s what I’m here for, after all.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘But there are ways and ways of doing things.’ And then she said, ‘If I come out again this afternoon, could I have another go?’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘It would be a very good thing. I’ll do one circuit with you first, and then if everything’s okay you can take it by yourself again.’

She came for her appointment at three o’clock. I was in the air with another pupil and glanced at my watch when I saw the Alvis on the road, but she was ten minutes early and I finished my half hour. When we landed I found her sitting in the other Moth, the one that she had flown that morning, savouring it, thinking about flying.

‘I won’t be a minute,’ I said as I passed her.

She smiled. ‘Don’t hurry. I’m quite happy.’

I came out five minutes later and got into the machine, and sat there while she took it off and did a circuit of the aerodrome and landed it again. Then I turned and nodded to her, and got out of the machine, and stood beside her. ‘She’s all yours,’ I said. ‘Don’t stay up longer than half an hour – I don’t want you to get tired. Do four or five landings. Don’t get out of sight of the aerodrome, but if you should lose sight
of it just come down low and look around the horizon till you see the gasometer. All okay?’

She nodded and smiled at me, and I turned and walked away across the grass.

I watched her from the office window as I had a cup of tea. Some of her landings were better than others, but none of them was really bad. Stan Hudson, the ground engineer came in and watched one or two of them. ‘Doing all right,’ he remarked. ‘Pleased as a dog with two tails, she is.’

I nodded. ‘Going to make a good pilot.’

When she came in at the end of her half hour I strolled out to meet her at the entrance to the hangar. ‘That was all right,’ I said. ‘Feeling happy with her now?’

She nodded. ‘I feel that I could take her anywhere.’

‘Well, you can’t. We’ll have to do some navigation if you’re going to go places. But you’re flying it all right.’

She said, ‘I feel we ought to celebrate, or something,’ she said. ‘It’s been such a wonderful day.’

I laughed. ‘There’s nobody else coming out this afternoon for a lesson. I’ll open up the bar and we can have a drink to mark the occasion.’

She said, ‘Oh, do let’s do that! I’ll go over and change.’

When she joined me I had opened the roller shutter and stood behind the bar. ‘What are you going to have?’ I asked. ‘This one is on the club.’

She said, ‘I’d like a gin and French. But I’ll pay for it. What will you have, Captain Pascoe?’

‘I’d like a beer,’ I replied. ‘But you get one free drink upon the club for going solo. Only one.’ I served her drink, and pulled the barman’s stool up, and we sat down with the bar between us.

She sipped her drink, and I lit a cigarette for her. ‘I tried to tell you this morning what all this has meant to me,’ she said presently. ‘I put it very badly. It’s been like stepping out into another world. A terribly exciting world, a much wider
world. A world where one could hurt oneself in lots of ways, or even kill oneself. What I was trying to say this morning is that you’ve made it all so
safe
. I’d never have dreamed three months ago that I should ever fly an aeroplane. If I’d thought about it at all I’d have thought I’d never have the nerve, that I’d be too old, and too frightened. You’ve made it all seem so safe and easy, and showed me how to step out into the wider world. That’s why I’m so terribly grateful to you, and I always shall be.’